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On Singing, Showers, and the Politics of Neighborly Relations (Plus Music and Movies!)

The title of this blog is of course Librarian in the City, so tonight I’m going to deal more with the “city” aspect of that moniker. 🙂 Since 2009, I’ve lived in LA. I’ve been in three different apartments, but each has always meant living in very close proximity to people. Often loud people. Frequently drunk people. I think several mentally ill people. At least it was always interesting. But my frustration with my neighbors has perhaps made me hypersensitive to being loud in my own apartment. Apartments in LA are very close together, and since most of us lack air conditioning, and the weather is perfect nearly year-round, windows are always open. So sometimes it feels like your neighbors’ party is happening in your bedroom. Or your neighbor’s awkwardly personal conversations is right at your kitchen table. So I assume if I can hear them so easily, they can probably hear me, too.

One of the things I would totally do if I didn’t have to worry about neighbors overhearing: sing in the shower. I’m thinking of this after watching the latest Woody Allen film, To Rome with Love on my last flight from Dallas to LA. I’m sorry to say that even in such a captive situation, it didn’t hold my interest and I didn’t watch to the end. It may well be that Allen can never do anything that will surpass Midnight in Paris for me, because it is honestly one of my favorite films of all time, about my favorite city, and I would SO love to have the plot of that movie happen to me. 🙂 However, one part of To Rome that I did really like – the character who is a fantastically talented opera singer, but only when he’s in the shower. As Woody Allen’s character points out in the film, it’s true that we all do seem to sound better in the shower.

I do love to sing – I used to sing in the Women’s Chorus of Dallas before moving to LA, but never found something like that in LA. If I didn’t have to worry about it, I’d sing in the shower all day long, but in an apartment, I don’t feel like that would be very polite. I had some crazy neighbors at my old apartment who would sing a lot – well, sing is putting it very politely. It was more like…moderately tonal screaming, I guess? I would hate to be that neighbor, so I have thus far refrained from singing in the shower (especially since I think I am one of the earliest up in this whole building). However, sometimes you need to sing a little, so I have been doing it (quietly) while I work on stuff tonight. In case you’d like to hear some good music and sing along with me, here’s my (in progress) Spotify playlist. Some of it might surprise you, and it’s not all very good quality music artistically speaking, but it’s all stuff I like to sing along with.

So what’s your take on neighborly relations, my dear readers? Would you sing in the shower with neighbors in close quarters?